Two Years. And a week.

I’m a little late with this post. Honestly, I’ve just been so tired and busy and sick and busy and tired and hungry and tired to find time to sit in front of the keyboard. When mama suffers, the blog suffers. Many apologies.

Anyhow, as most regular readers know, April 22, 2015 is my sober date. So, I just earned my two-year chip. And I’m very grateful and happy, but cautious (as usual).

I remember when I earned one year sober, how excited I was. It felt like graduation day. Like a real accomplishment. And then a few weeks later I thought, now what? The idea that I had to do that, over and over again, every year, for the rest of my life, was a bit daunting. And then I went on to have one of the most challenging years on record. It was no 2013, but it came close.

It was touch-and-go when we first moved to Tucson. I was determined to make a fresh start, and leave all that AA stuff behind in San Francisco. But, I got very depressed about the move and started having thoughts. Those thoughts. So, I bounced here and there around Tucson, trying to find a good meeting, and luckily I did. Those people saved me. I needed them, and as any AA will tell you, they needed me too.

I wanted to give a gift to everyone at that meeting. For all the support they offered up, without me even having to ask. From the moment I walked in, I felt welcomed and wanted, in the way only AA can make an addict feel. And I owed so much of my second year to them, and their help.

And on the evening of my 2nd sober birthday, I was confronted with visions of my former self. Very up close and personal. It was like a message from my higher power (which hasn’t taken a real form in my mind yet, but I have ideas). “This is what it was like for others to watch you. Never forget that.” Lately I had been harboring resentment (a big AA no-no) toward people in my life who seemed, to me, to ignore the emotional pain I was in back then, and chose instead to focus on the alcohol problem. How could they not see? How could they not care? But, I suddenly realized that evening that they just didn’t know what else to do. It was the most obvious and fixable of my many issues, and a good place to start. I see that now.

The next year of my life will be full of challenges, as every year is. But, this year I will have an infant. My third child. That alone is going to toss up challenge after challenge. I just have to remember all the things I’ve survived, and remember that this will be joyful. Stressful, but joyfully stressful.